Field
Embodiments discussed herein generally relate to encouraging achievement of health goals. In particular, some embodiments may relate to altering an environment of a user's location to encourage the user toward achieving a health goal.
Relevant Technology
Exercising and eating healthy on a consistent and ongoing basis are common challenges for many people. Studies suggest that human heuristics and biases may introduce challenges to successfully implementing an exercise routine and/or eating healthy.
Research indicates that humans may operate under a time-inconsistent model of discounting described as hyperbolic discounting. For example, given two similar rewards, humans show a preference for a reward that arrives sooner over a reward that arrives later. In the context of health and fitness, people may discount the effort needed to perform tasks in the future, potentially leading people to make health-conscious plans for their future selves. Research also indicates that humans may assign more importance to immediate wants than to long-term wants, often described as present bias or immediacy effect. For example, a person may be driven to satisfy immediate wants even where those immediate wants are inconsistent with their long-term wants. Thus, notwithstanding their plans to exercise and to eat healthy meals, people may give in to more immediate wants and may choose not to exercise and/or may eat less healthy meals when it comes time to actually exercise and/or to eat.
Studies of hyperbolic discounting and present bias may confirm what people have long known, that making plans to exercise and to eat healthy is often much easier than actually exercising and eating healthy.
Many motivational tools exist to help people execute their well-intentioned health plans. However, many of the motivational tools are often ineffective for some people.
The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one exemplary technology area where some embodiments described herein may be practiced.